diagree #1

Your #1 is the exact reason that american's economy is going down. it will slide deeper in the next decade when more asian and russian scients and Ph.Ds return to their homeland. American used to be the leader in innovation and R&D.its strong economy is boosted by new products in technology, not because of those lawyers and bussinessman. Many top companies used to be controled by strong science background CEO or owners, now many of them controlled by salesman background CEO. the only thing they know is cut cost. Deept cut in the R&D. they are so near-sighted, the results are: automobile industry is far lagging behind the asian automakers, pharm owned by european companies. so far only IT still hold on, since more foreigh engineering students in the university, I wonder how long it takes to be passed by asian companies. Luckily, many american start to realize it, like bill gates, ask the country to pay more attention to math and science eduation.
as for our kids, let them do what they like and what they are good at. for adults, we should learn from Indian, many Indian born scientists start their own bussiness.